Grand Cafe And Beach
Beach Road, Granger Bay, 021 425 0551
Gold
96 Strand Street, Cape Town, 021 421 4653
Warwick Gourmet
Picnics
Warwick Estate
Stellenbosch 021 884 3144
Drinking from a traditional wedding cup during a wine estate picnic, doing some singularly un-African dance moves at a museum restaurant and sipping cocktails on a man-made beach were among the highlights of a visit to Cape Town by my eldest girl, Jessica, and her toyboyfriend Simon.
We almost missed one of these activities. We were on our way to picnic at Warwick wine estate when my Renault Scenic broke down. With smoke billowing through the dashboard into the car and us all clambering out and running away for dear life, I swear I heard my brother-in-law Jules's advice ringing in my ears: "I told you not to buy a French car!". Oh shut up.
But while the car was towed to Cape Town (again), Warwick's owner, Mike Ratcliffe, came to our rescue, sending a car to take us to the picnic and returning us safely home to Cape Town afterwards. Now that is service.
A week earlier we had been at the new Grand Café and Beach, a gloriously decorated bar-restaurant in an enormous shed at Granger Bay. This is the hottest new ticket in Cape Town, a super-buzzing venue with an endless bar along one wall, vast tables thronging with good-time people, waiters run madly off their feet, cocktails whizzing this way and that on trays, a second smaller room with more tables and a wildly eclectic shop and, outside, a beach that's had a little help.
No way is all this going to come cheaply, but if you have visitors and want to impress them, choose a still night and get them to the grandest beach.
We indulged in the Grand Feast, a series of groaning platters of pizza, then calamari, tempura prawns and Caesar salad, followed by platters of line fish and tagliata (strips of wonderfully tender beef) and finally mini-mountains of meringue draped with berries.
This is truly La Dolce Vita, and how wonderful to know that there is a spot in the Mother City where you can really have it all - sea, stars, beach, romance, great food, excellent vibe. Wow.
Gold, at the the magnificent Gold Museum in Strand Street, is another delight for visitors, although this one would not normally be of interest to locals.
We had a great night out, and most impressive here is the entertainment. The best thing of all is that your waiters suddenly become part of the show, singing, dancing, drumming, then return to the more humdrum task of filling your wine glass and bringing your food.
Which is pretty good, although you may wonder what "African tapas" is. Why are restaurateurs in this country unable to find our own themes and names for things? Tapas is not African. Small portions aren't either. And there is one truly glaring omission from this supposedly African menu: there is no red meat on the menu other than a tiny portion of bobotie. In Africa - land of the cow, goat and buffalo - there is no meat on a showcase African menu. This is like not having soy sauce on a Chinese menu, or omitting the spices in a curry. Come on, we're Africans, we eat meat.
What there is, is quite nice. We started with a corn soup served with puri, the flat Indian light-as-air breads, ordinary but pleasant, and went on to dishes like vegetable samoosas with chutney cream, potato skewers with a peanut coriander dip, chicken satay and a mini-portion of excellent bobotie.
All dishes are served to the whole table, and the mains that followed were a seafood curry, peri-peri chicken wings, vetkoek, dhal with roasted butternut, and, to end, malva pudding.
For such a seemingly lengthy menu, all of it served, it was strangely unsatisfying.
We all still had the nibbles. Maybe that was because of all the activity, which builds up an appetite. But do take your guests there - it's nevertheless a great night out.
So, some days later, to Warwick, sans car. The weather was (like the car) not overly kind to us that day, which meant that it was too windy to take advantage of one of their picnic "pods" down at the lakeside.
But the interior of the tasting room is a lovely alternative, and it is not hard to imagine what an idyll the pod sites must be given the excellent fare you find in your organically pure picnic hamper.
It was all put together by Mike Ratcliffe and award-winning chef Bruce Robertson. It's a wine and food safari.
You can climb into an ersatz game-ranging vehicle and trek up the mountain, through vineyards, with your ranger pointing out the Big Five - a somewhat hokey and pun-ridden idea, but it's fun.
The "penthouse" at the top offers a butler-served feast (or you could enjoy it in your "pod") of biltong and brandy paté, quality cold meats, poached chicken breast with truffle mayo, beautifully spiced frikkadels, tabbouleh, wholegrain mustard potato salad, chocolate brownie, makataan (melon) preserve and a packet (Mike's idea) of Maynards Winegums.
I liked that touch especially. Sorry Bruce.